The improved coating material includes the use of a noble metal or soft metal homogeneously distributed within a hard nitride material. The addition of small amounts of such metals into nitrides such as molybdenum nitride, titanium nitride, and chromium nitride results in as much as increasing of the hardness of the material as well as decreasing the friction coefficient and increasing the oxidation resistance.

From a tribological standpoint, a combination of high mechanical hardness with low friction is always desired but seldom achieved in most sliding surfaces. With many conventional coatings, base steel sliding against itself gives friction coefficients of 0.12 to 0.16 even under the best lubrication conditions.

An improved coating material is based on the use of a noble and soft metals such as Au, or a soft metal such as Cu, In, Sn, Sb, Ga and Bi, with hard nitrides, carbonitrides, and borides such as MoN, CrN, TiN, TiCN, TiB2 and ZrN. The addition of small amounts of these metals into MoN, CrN and TiN results in an increase of the hardness of the nitride coatings, in addition to improving the lubricity of these coatings. In particular, it has been found that concentrations of about 1–3 at % of the materials described herein provide for substantial increases in lubricity of the nitride coatings.